1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing system for an e-mail (electronic-mail), an information processing method and a program storage medium therefor, which are suitable for application to personal computers or the like that carry out, for example, an e-mail transmission and reception.
2. Related Art
Among many number of internet applications in use in a recent computer network system in which a plurality of personal computers are connected to each other via the internet, the most popular application that is attracting the largest number of users is an electronic mail (e-mail) service, hence, the number of users who are motivated to start the internet service because “I just wanted to use an e-mail” is increasing substantially.
An object of using such an e-mail service is considered to reside mainly in transmission and reception of messages between a plurality of personal computers or the like via a network, and is limited to a feature of transmitting/receiving picture data and/or music data at most as its advanced version, thereby utilizing the e-mail simply as an alternative to a hand-written letter or a post card.
Namely, the e-mail is developing as an alternative communication means faster than a postal mail, which can be communicated between a mail sender and a mail recipient simply and easily using not only personal computers but also portable information equipment such as portable telephones, a PHS (Personal Handyphone System) and a PDA (Personal Digital Assistants).
Further, the e-mail contains a mail header information as a part of its transmission/reception information so as to ensure for the e-mail to be delivered to a specified mail recipient according to a mail address contained in the mail header information, and also to inform the recipient who is a sender of the e-mail, which is known from a name of the sender contained in the mail header information.
Here, the so-called mail header information contains information corresponding to a mailing address, a name of an addressee and those of a sender in the postal mails, which are to be used in communication of the e-mail between the sender and the recipient.
As this mail header information for transmitting/receiving an e-mail using personal computers, a domain name of a DNS (Domain Name System) is used as an address (addressee) of its e-mail.
For example, when sending an e-mail to a mail recipient user who subscribes to a mail server having “abcd.co.jp” which is set up as its domain name, and who has a user name (=mail account) of “name”, a mail sender specifies a mailing address by inserting “@” between the mail account and the domain name such as name@abcd.co.jp, thereby designating the recipient user (affixed with “name”) as its addressee who subscribes to the mail server which was set up under the domain name of “abcd.co.jp” under control of “abcd” company.
A significant difference between electronic mail communications on the basis of the internet described above and on the basis of interpersonal computers resides in that a large number of mail servers are distributed in the former case, therefore, a respective mail server is normally provided for a respective domain in an electronic mail system on the internet.
Therefore, a client user will transmit and receive an e-mail to and from a mail server having a domain name to which the client user belongs. At this time, a transfer of the e-mail will be carried out using the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) which is a host protocol of the TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol).
In practice, in a computer network system 1 as illustrated in FIG. 24, a mail client 2 on the side of a mail sender requests a mail server 3 to which the mail client 2 belongs a transmission of an e-mail by the SMTP as a first step (1).
A mail server 3 on the side of the mail sender analyzes the address of the e-mail according to a mail delivery program “sendmail” as a second step (2) and makes inquiry to a DNS (Domain Name System) server in the domain of the e-mail address about an IP (Internet Protocol) address of a mail server 5 on the side of the mail recipient, then as a third step (3), sends the e-mail to the mail server 5 on the side of the addressee via an internet 4.
The mail server 5 on the side of the mail recipient receives the e-mail sent via the internet 4 in accordance with the mail delivery program “sendmail” in a fourth step (4), and stores the e-mail temporarily in a mail box 5A which is provided for each mail recipient based on each mail account for a dedicated use therefor.
A mail client 6 on the side of the mail recipient makes access to the mail server 5 using a mailer (a software) for use in writing e-mails and transmission/reception thereof as a fifth step (5), and is allowed to read e-mails addressed to the mail recipient and stored in the mail box 5A in accordance with a protocol such as a POP (Post Office Protocol) or the like.
At this time, the mail client 6 on the side of the recipient is allowed to download a newly arrived e-mail in accordance with the mailer (the software for use in writing and transmission/reception of e-mail) when a new e-mail has arrived at the mail server 5 on the side of the recipient, and at the same time, the mail recipient is informed of arrival of the new e-mail by means of a display of a popup window on a display screen, sounding of a preset receiving alarm, or reproducing of a preset sound message.
However, in the computer network system 1 having such configuration described above, because the mail client 6 on the side of the recipient of the e-mail is notified of the arrival of the new e-mail only by a predetermined uniform notification method common to all clients, the mail recipient is unable to determine who is the sender of the e-mail, what its contents are, what priority of importance it has or the like at the time of reception of the e-mail.
Incidentally, there is a so-called push type information delivery scheme as an active method of delivering information from an information originator such as a contents service provider or the like to a plurality of unspecified users who are connected to the internet via an internet connecting service provider.
In such push type information delivery systems, there are such problems that because a data format used for sending such information is unique to each system and is different from a general data format, a user side personal computer must install a push type information reception software installed which is different from the mailer for use in the e-mails, and also the push type information originator/sender must have a large scaled push type information delivery software installed, thereby forcing the information sender to bear an increased cost.